


since you came back to me (after the fall)

by SoManyJacks



Category: Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Age Difference, Catharsis, Eventual Resolution, Frottage, Hate Sex, Id Fic, Light Dom/sub, Luminary has anger issues, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Unprocessed Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 06:20:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21471439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoManyJacks/pseuds/SoManyJacks
Summary: Hendrik is surprised to see the Luminary is still alive, and even more surprised to see such rage in his eyes. Will they find a way to common ground?(Yes. Yes they will.)
Relationships: Graig | Hendrik/Hero | Luminary, Luminary/Hendrik (Dragon Quest XI)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51





	since you came back to me (after the fall)

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up: this is moderately dark, and this Luminary isn't full of sweetness and light. It is a short scene which takes place after the Luminary comes to the Last Bastion. The title comes from a song by Elvis Costello.

Everything Hendrik built at the Last Bastion -- the back-breaking, bloody work of two and a half months -- threatens to topple when _ he _shows up. 

The Luminary. Alive, despite everything.

Perhaps it is only old habits, the thought patterns drilled into him over the last nineteen years, but it is still difficult for Hendrik to see this lad as anything but a force for destruction, no matter how pretty his face might be.

Surely, his arrival brings nothing but chaos. Why else would the King decide to suddenly throw away all of Hendrik’s work -- not to mention the lives of everyone in the Last Bastion -- for such a foolhardy scheme?

The plan King Carnelian lays out is ridiculous, full stop. Sneaking into Heliodor Castle through the sewers, while the bulk of the enemy was drawn out? Such things never work, aside from in fairy tales and legends. 

It isn’t just that Hendrik fears for the refugees, though that is paramount. But it is more than that. A simmering unease tickling the back of his throat, curdling the pit of his stomach, the source known but left unnamed. 

This was by design. After the fall of Yggdrasil, Hendrik’s sense of guilt, shame, and failure was so towering, so all-encompassing, that to acknowledge it, much less process it, would be paralyzing. That was not an option. 

No, the only way through was to save as many as possible. Hendrik needed to become a hero -- The Hero, in fact. Nothing less would begin to make up for his mistakes. 

For a time it almost worked. Seeing the gratefulness in the eyes of the survivors, it was easy to paper over the mountain of guilt and failure.

But then the Luminary appeared, and his eyes were not grateful. Not even a little.

Hendrik knows it will not be an easy thing to fight alongside one who burns with such rage. The morning after King Carnelian orders them both to take Heliodor Castle, the Luminary appears for duty in full Drasilian regalia, gleaming even under the dull clouds. Brighter still are his eyes, full of accusations. 

The Luminary does not kneel, nor does he bow. In fact, he says nothing to the King. He does not need to. His armor speaks for him: _ I’m not your subject. I never have been. _

Hendrik and the Luminary travel to the ruined church at the base of the mountain, not speaking. Finally, Hendrik breaks the silence. “We shall stop here for the night. Gather wood for the fire. I shall clear ground for the bedrolls.” 

It is clear from the fresh flash of rage in the Luminary’s eyes that he does not care to be given orders. However, he remains silent and does as Hendrik asks. 

The silence continues through the evening meal. Hendrik has no love for idle chit-chat, but this is unacceptable. If they are to fight together, there should at least be the pretense of respect. 

Hendrik realizes with a shock that he has no idea what the Luminary’s name is. “What should I call you, then?” he asks, not looking up from his dinner.

The Luminary’s jaw works, as if he could hardly speak his name. “Paden,” he says finally.

Hendrik nods. It is a fitting name -- Drasilian for ‘little prince’. “And your armor? Where did you find such a thing?”

“I forged it.” He casts a challenging gaze at Hendrik, his eyes rimmed red, jaw clenched so hard Hendrik thinks his teeth might crack. 

Hendrik frowns, looking away. Can't the lad set aside his rage for even one minute? Clearly, it is up to Hendrik to build the entire bridge. “Fine work,” he mutters.

Paden remains silent. Hendrik glances up, does a double take. The lad is staring at him. The rage is still present, but something else is there, too. Something Hendrik isn’t sure he recognizes. Or rather, he recognizes it all too well: need, naked and smoldering. Slowly, Paden’s gaze slips down, grazing over Hendrik’s shoulders and biceps before skittering away. 

After another moment, Paden sets aside his empty plate and gets up to pray. He kneels just outside the circle of firelight at the statue, his back to Hendrik, a silent snub. 

Hendrik sighs heavily. The constant belligerence from the lad is starting to take a toll, churning through Hendrik’s gut, leaving resentment in its wake. The way Paden looked at him, it was as if the entirety of the fall of Yggdrasil was somehow Hendrik’s fault alone. Preposterous! Hendrik had no indication that King Carnelian had been taken over by Mordegon. Granted, he did become cold and calculating after the fall of Dundrasil, but how was Hendrik to know that an ageless evil had taken up residence in his heart?

The longer he chews on his resentment, the more sour it becomes. Where has the Luminary been this whole time? Easy enough to appear without even a scratch and toss about such accusations, as if Hendrik hadn’t been fighting and bleeding this whole time.

Eventually, Hendrik notices that Paden’s prayer was taking far longer than it should. The lad’s shoulders are shaking. “Are you alright?” he calls out.

Paden shakes his head in dismissal, his hair falling over his face like a mask. He stumbles to his bedroll, turned away, stifling his sobs. 

Hendrik’s resentment turns to disgust. Surely, the great and noble _ Luminary, _ this new _ hero, _should have learned to cope with grief the way everyone else had. Did he not still have his mother, his childhood sweetheart? More than most could still claim. Before Hendrik could take himself to task for such uncharitable thoughts, he hears himself say, “If you cannot complete this mission, you might as well return to the Bastion. You will only slow me down.”

On the bedroll, Paden goes motionless. Then, slowly, he sits up, turning to look at Hendrik. 

The hatred in his eyes is like nothing Hendrik has seen yet.

With a cry of inarticulate rage, he leaps at Hendrik, pummeling him with closed fists, the way one would pound on a stuck door. His attacks are too clumsy to land, his eyes streaming tears, his nose running. Some of the shouts sound almost like words. 

Almost like _ your fault. _

He is easy to subdue. Hendrik pins him flat on his back, holding his wrists. Paden struggles anyway, eyes clenched shut against the tears, voice breaking. 

Hendrik growls in frustration. “Be still. Be still, I tell you!”

His words are useless. Paden continues to squirm under him. He hooks a leg around Hendrik’s thigh, no doubt trying to kick. This accomplishes nothing but to grind their hips together. 

Hendrik is shocked to find that Paden is half-hard. More shocking still is when he himself twitches in response. Hendrik knows he should feel nothing but revulsion. And yet, a spike of need pulses through him. 

“Let me go.” Paden manages actual words this time, his eyes open, chest heaving.

Hendrik finds he doesn’t want to let go. He pretends it is because he expects another attack and not because of the way it feels to have Paden looking up at him, flushed and helpless. “Are you finished?” 

More struggle. This time, Paden pulls less at his hands, bucks more from his hips. His nostrils flare as the move connects with Hendrik’s thigh. Then he does it again. “Let me go.” His words are quieter, breathier. That needy look from before is in his eyes, eclipsing the rage. 

_ Maybe he needs this, _ Hendrik thinks. _ Maybe I do, too. _

Out loud, Hendrik says, “I ask again, are you finished?” This time, Hendrik bears down on him, putting far more pressure on them than before. They are both hard now.

Paden inhales sharply, almost a gasp. He tries to struggle, wrenching at his wrists. 

Hendrik leans down, cages him with his forearms. He’s heavy, and for all Paden’s boyish strength, he cannot hope to wrestle free.

Paden continues to pummel and kick, squirm and buck, now gasping and grunting. It’s almost like a wrestling match, except that Paden isn’t trying to get free, not really. He’s chasing a release of a different sort. 

Hendrik is not unfamiliar with the concept. As a youth, he had more than one “sparring match” end this way. Paden however, is just getting angrier, seemingly frustrated in more ways than one. The conflict fuels his anger, which in turn fuels his lust. 

Hendrik finds he is enjoying this far too much. Paden is 19, while Hendrik is almost 34. It is wrong, surely. Isn’t it? Yet at the moment, all Hendrik wants to do is rip the trousers of Paden’s slender body and claim him, fuck him until he howls in pain and pleasure, till he comes apart in a gasping, sweating mess.

Paden starts to whine, the movement of his hips jerky and unsettled. “Let me go, let me go.”

Hendrik grunts in frustration. He rears up, just enough for eye contact. Slowly and clearly, he says, “I will let you go when you say ‘stop’. Do you understand?”

Paden stares at him, pupils blown out, breath coming in heaves.

“Do you _understand?” _

Finally, Paden nods, the movement shaky.

Hendrik does not say anything else. Now is not the time for praise. Anger is a slippery thing, and if Paden were to lose hold of it now....

Instead Hendrik grasps a handful of Paden’s silky hair in his fist, twisting it tight. Paden squirms beautifully, trying to relieve the pressure, stretching his long neck. 

Hendrik wants to bite the delicate skin, wrap his hand around the slender column just enough to feel the thrumming of Paden’s pulse. He wants so, so much. 

He satisfies himself with rolling his hips, grinding down hard. Paden inhales in shock and discomfort and pleasure, almost a squeal. At the same time, he clenches his eyes shut, as if he doesn’t want to look at Hendrik.

Hendrik is fine with that. Let there be distance between them. Let this just be about rage and lust, nothing more. 

He ruts, hard and fast. His own cock is trapped within his silk smallclothes, the fabric gliding just so against his supple leather leggings. Paden is dressed in cloth; though the linen is soft with many washings, Hendrik knows from experience the friction is painful. If Paden wants this, he will have to work for it. 

Maybe a tiny part of Hendrik wants it to hurt. Maybe Hendrik likes hearing the grunts and hisses of discomfort, likes seeing the tension on Paden’s too-beautiful face as he fought against the pain to find the pleasure.

Paden starts to moan. Though there is little danger of discovery, Hendrik stifles his mouth with his other hand, continuing to grind his hips. 

Paden retaliates by biting him, worrying his teeth into the base of Hendrik’s thumb. Yet it is not a bite intended to cause pain, but to provide another outlet for tension.

Hendrik groans, feeling the tip of Paden’s tongue laving at his calloused hand. Hendrik is close -- very close -- but his pride will not let him come first. 

He does not need to wait long. Paden’s teeth loosen their grip as he whimpers into Hendrik’s palm. His hips are bucking up, up, up, until his whole body judders with release.

Hendrik growls, letting his full weight pin Paden down, grinding his cock against the juncture of his thigh. His climax follows a moment later, seeming to boil out from the base of his spine, leaving him shivering with aftershocks, collapsed on top of Paden’s shuddering body. 

The sound of shaky breathing combines with the pops and crackles from the fire. Hendrik knows he must get up -- these sorts of encounters are about release, not intimacy -- yet he finds he is strangely reluctant.

Then he hears -- no, _ feels _ \-- Paden begin to sob underneath him. Not with anger or rage, but grief.

Something in Hendrik shatters, then melts. An echo of his own grief resonates sympathetically, and in response his shallow, unbecoming resentment disintegrates to nothingness. 

“It’s all right,” Hendrik says, cradling Paden. His touch is not gentle, but firm, assured. “It’s all right.” 

“They’re dead. They’re all dead,” Paden sobs. “I failed them.”

Hendrik’s heart aches to hear it. “You did no such thing. We were all deceived. Yet, you live. You live, and while you live, there is hope.”

Paden shakes his head, weeping. 

Hendrik leans up. “Luminary. Do I yet live? Does King Carnelian yet live? You forget, I knew your companions, or two of them at least. Do you really think Lord Robert and Princess Jade would succumb so easily? Something tells me that, if you have survived, they have found ways to do so as well.” 

Gasping, Paden fights to regain control of himself. Eventually, he nods. “She said as such.” His eyes blink open, but he looks out to the side, as if not wanting to meet Hendrik’s gaze. 

Fair enough. Hendrik rolls off of him, with a wave of unease following. Was this a mistake? This was not like the sparring matches of his youth, an encounter of no consequence. Had he somehow forced the Luminary’s hand, goaded him into something they would both regret?

Paden sits up, immediately heading to the stream nearby, out of the circle of firelight. Hendrik does the same, going in the opposite direction. He washes himself, changes into sleeping clothes, taking his time before returning to the circle of firelight.

Paden is already there, staring into the flames. He does not look up when Hendrik approaches. 

Hendrik busies himself with his bedroll, unsure of what to say. Paden seems calm now, though perhaps it is simple fatigue. 

Hendrik cannot possibly expect to sleep like this, leaving so much unsaid. So he picks the last topic of conversation. “You said earlier, _ she _said as much. To whom were you referring?”

Paden snorts, but the sound is not bitter. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he scoffs, throwing a twig into the flames.

“Try me.”

Paden looks at him. There is challenge there, but no rage. More importantly, there is confidence, deep and unshakable, the steely gaze Hendrik had seen in Sniflheim. For the first time since his return, Hendrik sees not a scared, hateful young lad, but a hero. More than a hero - The Luminary.

Finally, Paden speaks. “The Queen of Nautica, Marina. That’s where I’ve been. After... after,” he says, “I fell into the sea. Her servants found me near death and brought me to Nautica. To save my life, she... transformed me. I only regained consciousness a few hours before the city fell. That was three days ago. No, four now.”

Hendrik blinks rapidly, trying to make sense of this information. So, he had been unconscious this whole time, hidden under the sea. Which meant that, to Paden, Yggdrasil had just fallen. He had not had months to process the grief the way everyone else had. Small wonder he was so full of rage.

It also was the most he had ever heard the lad say. “Nautica? The mythical home of the mermaids?”

Paden nods, humming his assent.

“And the city fell. Yet another grave loss.” Hendrik shakes his head. “And you say you were transformed?”

Paden looks at him, sighing in annoyance. “Into a fish.” It’s clear from his tone that he did not expect Hendrik to believe him.

“A... did you say you were a fish?” Woodenly, Hendrik mimes swimming with his hands.

Paden rolls his eyes. 

Hendrik feels the laughter build deep in his stomach. Try as he might, it could not be suppressed, bubbling from his lips.

Paden’s lips twitch. A moment later, he too is laughing, long and deep, clutching his stomach as he fights for breath.

The moment stretches long. Finally, they both collapse into their bedrolls, still fighting down the errant giggle and snort. 

Hendrik wonders if he should say anything about what just happened. He’s older, experienced; surely, it is upon him to make things right. 

But if something is to be said, it will not be now. Such laughter as this is a gift; Hendrik does not want to risk sullying it with dour talk of boundaries and appropriateness. There would be time for such things in the morning. For now, let them both fall asleep with a smile on their face. 


End file.
